Live firing is the best way to practice drawing and firing a weapon. The practice process builds muscle memory, and helps the shooter develop proper techniques of delivery and complete weapon control. There are several negatives of this type of practice. Using ammunition is an ongoing expense, and measures have to be taken to practice with safety. This could mean traveling to a firing range, providing safety equipment for the shooter and possibly others, and allotting special time in the schedule for the practice session.
Dry fire practice is a good substitute for live fire practice. Dry firing is another process of building muscle memory whereby a firearm, especially a pistol, is drawn, aimed, and fired without using live ammunition. This enables the practice of firing a weapon to proceed smoothly and accurately without all of the said negatives of live fire practice. Because no live ammunition is used, there is no ongoing expense, there is no need to use safety equipment, a special shooting environment is not necessary, and practicing can be accomplished in much less time.
Dry firing also allows the shooter to practice in the actual environment where the weapon may need to be used for protection such as in the home. With complete safety, actual shooting scenarios can be practiced in and around the home.
Practicing at the range can also be improved. When live fire is practiced at the range, the novice shooter usually has to spend a significant amount of time and expend a lot of ammunition getting accustomed to the report and recoil of the weapon. Before live practice begins, some dry fire practicing can be done. This gets the novice shooter accustomed to the trigger feel before having to deal with the recoil and the report of live firing.
A major negative factor occurs with most methods of dry firing because when a semi-automatic weapon is live fired, it resets its firing pin and is ready to be fired again until the magazine is empty. The shooter's hands remain in the firing position, and just the trigger finger and the trigger are employed. With normal dry fire practice, after the first activation of the trigger releasing the firing pin, the shooter must remove a hand from the weapon and ratchet the slide back in order to reset the firing pin. The shooter can then let the trigger return the to its unfired position. The weapon is then ready for another trigger activation. This must be done each time a shot is simulated. Doing this teaches improper muscle memory because it is not at all what happens during actual live fire.
Another negative for standard dry fire practice is that there is concern as to wear and tear on the constant releasing of a weapon's firing pin without it having the cushioning effect of the firing pin striking a round of ammunition.
There are some devices or systems that aid in dry fire practice, but none of the patented devices or systems address the “hands-free” trigger reset problem or the firing pin use problem.
Some patented training systems incorporate computer graphics into the training scenario. Other patents address the duplication of a weapon's recoil, laser marking of “shots”, projecting images onto a screen, etc.
Here are a few examples of weapon training patents: